INCLUSION DAILY
EXPRESS

Your quick, once-a-day look at disability rights,
self-determination and the movement toward full community inclusion around
the world.

Thursday, December 18, 2003Year V, Edition 845

This front page features 8 news and information items,
each preceded by a number (#) symbol.Click on the"Below the Fold"
link at the bottom of this page for 27 more news items.

QUOTES OF THE DAY:"I did not feel this was consistent with my
record as an advocate for the developmentally disabled."--California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as he withdrew his budget proposal which would
have restricted community-based services for people with developmental
disabilities (First story)

"All of this stuff is getting awfully good, and it's getting
cheap."--V. Michael Bove, a research scientist at M.I.T.'s Media Lab,
talking about some of the new telecommunications products and services for
people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (Fifth story)

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA--A week after disability rights advocates
rallied at the state Capitol to protest proposed restrictions to
community-based services for Californians with developmental disabilities,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday that he has reversed his
position.

"I did not feel this was consistent with my record as an advocate for
the developmentally disabled," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "I have
dedicated myself to improving their lives, particularly through my work with
Special Olympics."

The new governor had proposed limiting services, including respite and
recreational activities, to help bridge the multi-billion dollar budget gap.
His plan would have meant suspending the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities
Services Act -- a 35-year-old law that currently guarantees certain
community-based services for about 200,000 people with developmental
disabilities -- and establishing waiting lists for services from the state's 10
regional centers.

More than 600 advocates gathered on December 10 to witness the irony as
Schwarzenegger had a toddler with cerebral palsy flip a switch to light the
Capitol Christmas tree in a public ceremony.

According to the Los Angeles Times, California Assembly Speaker Herb
Wesson told Schwarzenegger immediately before the event, "Well, this may be the
last extracurricular activity that kid does under your budget cuts."

WALTHAM,
MASSACHUSETTS--A coalition of three groups wants to settle the question of what
to do with 190 acres of state-owned land after Fernald Developmental Center
closes, by building a segregated "community" on the site, the Daily News
Tribune reported Wednesday.

The solution arrived at by the Fernald Working Group -- which includes
members of the Waltham Land Trust, the Waltham League of Women Voters and the
Waltham Alliance to Create Housing -- would have many of the 295 current
Fernald residents stay on the institution's property in new "community-based"
housing.

As it stands now, the plan would receive little support from Governor
Mitt Romney, who announced in February that the institution -- considered the
oldest facility housing people with developmental disabilities in the Western
Hemisphere -- would close by the end of 2004. Romney has pushed for moving the
residents into the community to save the state $2.5 million, and as a way to
integrate the residents into the general community.

Lawmakers, pressured by Fernald employees, area residents, and family
members of institution residents, have tried to block Romney's plan. In the ten
months since the governor's announcement, only seven residents have been moved.
All of those were transferred to state-operated regional facilities in
Massachusetts.

The Working Group's plan would also preserve the aging institution's
historic buildings, and encourage small business development on the
property.

"This is perhaps the city's largest community resource," said Waltham
Land Trust member Inge Uhlir, echoing a justification made by pro-institution
groups across the country during the past two decades to keep expensive
institutions in operation.

The institution was founded by social reformer Samuel Gridley Howe in
1848. Originally called the "Massachusetts School for the Feeble Minded", the
facility was renamed the Walter E. Fernald State School in 1925 after its first
resident superintendent.

---

# LAWS / COMMUNITY LIVING

Former Advocate Now On Other Side Of
Legal FenceBy Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily ExpressDecember 18,
2003

Advocates say that Abbott's position is strange when one considers that
the former Texas Supreme Court justice has used a wheelchair for the last 19
years and that he applauded the Texas Civil Rights Project when it settled a
lawsuit to make the Supreme Court building accessible to wheelchairs.

"It's ironic and sad, but I stopped trying to understand people's
motivations a long time ago," said Jennifer McPhail, an organizer with the
grassroots advocacy group ADAPT of Texas. "It just gives you a headache."

Abbott is representing the state in a class-action lawsuit, filed
against it by Arc of Texas and Advocacy Inc., over the waiting list for
community-based services for people with developmental disabilities. The suit
could affect the more than 25,000 people who have waited several years for
respite care, group homes and other supports.

The action is one of several that have been filed across the country
since July 1999, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its Olmstead decision
that "unnecessarily" forcing people with disabilities into institutions
violates the ADA.

"We're talking about basic needs," said Mike Bright, executive director
of the Arc of Texas.

Abbott's office is arguing that Congress did not have the authority to
apply the ADA to states when it passed the anti-discrimination law. A ruling
for Texas could also affect other provisions of the civil rights law when
applied to states.

---

# ADVOCACY / FAMILIES"Right To
Die Or Right To Kill?"December 18, 2003

TAMPA, FLORIDA--The
following four paragraphs are excerpts from a column in Thursday's Catholic
Herald, about Terri Schiavo's right to continue living:

Many in the media are hailing this as a "right to die" case. They say
that Terri is in persistent vegetative state, that she has no hope of
meaningful life, and that she should be allowed to die.

But make no mistake  this is most definitely not a right-to-die
case. Its a right-to-kill case. And the stakes are high, not just for
Terri, but for all of the vulnerable, disabled people of the world.

This case is not about the right of a terminally ill person to refuse
useless life-prolonging treatment. It is about the right of an adulterous,
neglectful and possibly abusive husband to sentence his wife to a slow,
excruciating death.

If Michael Schiavo prevails, Terri will not be the only victim. The
world will become a far more dangerous place for all of those who are disabled
and unable to speak for themselves.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK--Thursday's New York
Times featured an article about the growing technology which allows deaf and
hard-of-hearing people to communicate more effortlessly over long
distances.

High-speed Internet, videophones, PC-based videoconferencing technology
and Webcams are some of the new and improving telecommunications products and
services that help deaf users "chat" with others who may or may not be
deaf.

The second page of the article, which contains links to several relevant
resources, may require New York Times registration to access.

This brochure describes the Nazi treatment of handicapped people from
1933-1945.

Soon after Hitler took power, the Nazis formulated policy based on their
vision of biologically "pure" population, to create an "Aryan master race." The
"Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases," proclaimed July
14, 1933, forced the sterilization of all persons who suffered from diseases
considered hereditary, such as mental illness (schizophrenia and manic
depression), retardation ("congenital feeble-mindedness"), physical deformity,
epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism.